SavvyFlack @ H&K!

Let’s be honest, blogging’s a bitch. I mean, I have no shortage of stories to share, advice to bestow and family members to publicly humiliate (in a loving sort of way, of course). But who the hell is reading all this crap?

I have a self-diagnosed case of the Blogging Blahs. Symptoms include frequent, guttural responses such as “who cares?” and “so what?” When things get particularly bad, the disease elicits an “I’m so over it.”

There are kazillions of blogs out there, so much so that it’s virtually impossible to tell a unique story. As I type this, I feel obligated to point out the irony that even this topic—filed under Social Networking Fatigue—has already been widely blogged about.

Sure, I can spin it – heck, spin is how I earn a living – and tell you that according to Google Analytics this blog’s month-over-month readership is up by more than 1000%. Impressive, right? And, it’s even true! But you know Benjamin Disraeli? Me either.* But Mr. Disraeli has a saying that goes something like this, “there are three kinds of lies. Lies, damned lies and statistics” – a quote I came across many years ago while flacking for then research company BizRate.com, so it resonated particularly strongly.

Lemme tell you what 1000% increase really means… this blog has registered only a tad more than 300 hits in the past month. 300 measly hits. Added to that, my biggest fan is my mother, known to my readers as “Grandma Walmart.” And, channeling her, I have just one thing to say, “do you know how much I do for you?”

I actually think about what you would like to read (total lie), what I’d like to write (completely true, and it accounts for 90% of the blogging process), then pound it out on the keyboard (1-2 hours, depending on how good the vino is, although I never condone blogging under the influence), meticulously wordsmith it (another 30 minutes) and, in the last mile, I deal with the somewhat cumbersome process of uploading all this fabulousness to the blog itself (x2 because I post on my H&K Collective Conversations blog, as well as my personal www.SavvyFlack.com blog). When all that’s done, the hard work begins as I beg, whine, plead and ultimately nag my friends, family and co-workers to read it, deluging them with emails, Facebook and Twitter posts, IMs, phone calls and requests sent via carrier pigeons. Wow, who knew flacking was so hard?

My BFF from college, not in the industry, but who humors me by reading my posts and waxing on about how I’m such a great writer, actually suggested I’d increase my readership if I posted more frequently. I retorted, “Your Maid of Honor status has officially been revoked.”**

So, what keeps an academically deficient, single-but-delusional-with-wedding-fantasies flack-by-day/blogger-by-night going, aside from the mile-long list of topics I have yet to opine on? I mean, why not burn the list and do something more rewarding with my time (heading to Bloomie’s comes to mind, but only so I, ahem, may brush up on my knowledge of the commerce landscape in the interest of providing better counsel to my clients***)?

The best answer I can concoct is that it’s my patriotic duty to contribute to the digital clutter. One day Internet inventor Al Gore’s heirs will take on the cause of curbing global pollution and toxic contamination of the digital world, I’ll be retroactively fined (potentially by the word) for my wrongdoings, and the next generation will be forced to clean up my mess. Until then, Red, White & Blog. United States of Blogging. I bleed Blog. It’s as American as Blogger Pie. In Blogging we trust. All for no good reason.

* I typically blame my academic deficiency, which includes an embarrassing lack of knowledge of anything remotely related to literature, on my K-Undergrad schooling in the Texas public school system, but that is the subject of another post; and please, Texans, it’s a joke (mostly), don’t get offended.

** No, I’m not engaged. Far from it, in fact, since my personal mantra is, “Why date when there’s so much good TV to watch?” But that did not diminish the sting.

*** Honestly, check out the Future of Commerce report I co-authored for the agency.

I realize we may not have officially met, with me jumping into H&K’s Collective Conversations as if we’d known each other since grade school. I’ve taken for granted that you’d simply accept the thoughts shared on this blog even though I’ve neglected you a proper introduction. And, let’s face it, you’ve already met my mother, so shall we start again? Hi. I’m Julie. I’ve been PR-ing 15 years, give or take, at some of the world’s finest agencies, including Fleishman-Hillard, Manning Salvage & Lee and two tours of duty with H&K. Yep, I’m a “big agency” flack, notwithstanding the three years spent at a small 80-, then 50-, then 20-, then 8-person agency that has all but shut its doors in response to the devastating, and decimating, economic situation. I’ve worked with gobs of Fortune 500 brands and countless emerging brands. I remember Bacon’s books (we didn’t have the convenient online media databases that you kids have today), paper press kits snail mailed to media, and friends-and-family stock. I had a stamp that I’d dip in red ink to mark releases as “final” before routing them to the filing cabinet for safekeeping. I cut my teeth pitching Red Herring, Industry Standard, Family PC and Business 2.0. I recall when “bandwidth” (either you have it or you don’t) was the “gimme” in Buzzword Bingo.

So that was all just a ruse to (1) talk about myself and (2) set the stage, albeit in a long-winded way, to get to the point, which is this: so many things have changed in the world of PR in the past decade that I could write a book. But in today’s Web 2.0 world, who books when they can blog? And, since blogs should be snack-sized, I wanted to give you a small thought to chew on… have you noticed a change in our verb repertoire? Yep, verb repertoire. They’ve evolved to reflect the very 2.0 environment we flack in. I’m thinking specifically about the verbs tied to communications strategies. “Then,” flacks (and, by extension, the brands we represented) were very one-way, pushing our spin, hoping audiences would respond. In the 1990s, we announced, released, showed, drove, generated, increased, harnessed and leveraged. “Now,” brands are active participants, dialoguing directly and meaningfully with communities. Today flacks segment, socialize, engage, empower, engender, amplify, activate, innovate, listen, participate and contribute. And, because we are so used to speed (thank you, Google), we no longer “help drive sales,” we now “accelerate sales.” It just sounds so immediate… who could say no?

So, ready to create your own Buzzword Bingo cards for the next meeting? Go to http://www.misterharold.net/joker/bingo/index.htm

And, kids, please be kind, if you take a verb, leave a verb in the comments section.

Something weird is happening. It started last year when, at our nudging, my 65-year-old mother finally got high-speed Internet at home. Previously, she was using dial-up, which was “just fine.” Something spooky has happened as a result. My mom has become what I’ll call a “Social Senior.” So you understand why this is kinda cool and kinda creepy, let me tell you a bit about my mom. She considers Walmart a hobby. She goes there with complete disregard for whether she actually needs something. And, for the record, I don’t count year-round Christmas gift shopping for grandkids as “necessary.” My mom goes to Walmart just to pass the time and “see what they have,” before the triple-digit Texas heat keeps her squirreled away in the air-conditioned house. During this afternoon time, just before CNBC’s Jim Cramer tells her what to do with her stocks, she logs on to Facebook, posting on us kids’ pages, “Julie, are you coming home for Labor Day?” Commenting on our status updates, “Be careful. Wear your helmet when you ride your bike.” Or, soliciting our opinions in the public format, “They have faux fur coats on QVC, do you want me to get you one?” So, while others are spending their retirements crisscrossing the nation in RVs, eating buffet food aboard cruise ships and traveling to exotic lands, my mom is Facebooking away her Golden Years.

This got me thinking about “Social Seniors” and how they use networking sites to connect. I’m basing my findings on a study of just one person, my mom of four kids and grandma to two, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt, but here’s what I’ve found:

Decades don’t diminish the belief that an old high school or college classmate may be looking for them. “Grandma Walmart” has her nursing school photo from 1959 as her Facebook profile photo. It’s a lovely photo, with her blonde chin-length bob that was all the rage at the time, but she certainly could stand to share something more, well, this decade. What’s interesting is that many of mom’s friends’ profile photos are also half-century-old snapshots taken before “B&W” and “sepia” were just cool photo editing effects. We inquired as to the rationale. “Well, how are my friends from nursing school going to recognize me?” One for mom. Zero for the kids.

Grandmas use Facebook to snoop on the lives of others. I’m busting my mom here. Dear classmates, neighbors, and others who’ve come in and out of my life and the lives of my siblings, if you are OUR friend on Facebook, my mom is snooping on you. She is combing through the friends we’ve added to see how you’ve changed. I know because she’ll say things like, “Oh, (insert name of any ex-boyfriend) sure has done well for himself… his kids are so cute!” Thanks Mom. Sometimes this snooping can lead to a real pickle of a situation. My ex-boyfriend from high school is a musician still playing the club scene and his band has a Facebook fan page, which my mom accidently joined. She called me frantically, “How do I take that off?!” I told her it was impossible (hee…) and her only logical next step was to show up at one of his gigs and rock out.

They don’t always get it right, but when Grandma gets it wrong, it’s usually pretty funny. My mom hasn’t, and may never, fully grasp the fundamentals of Facebook. Consider that she wrote a note to my sister using her own status update “Michelle, how is your Scotch doing?” instead of posting it on Michelle’s wall. PS, although our family is Irish and German, a fairly accurate predictor of enthusiastic drinkers, I feel obligated to disclose that “Scotch” is short for “Butterscotch,” Michelle’s new rescue puppy. And, she’s doing quite well, thank you.

Now, Mom hasn’t found the Luby’s Cafeteria Facebook group yet (98 people are members), but I’m sure she’ll eventually discover the “Search” box, and we’ll all have invitations to fish Fridays. Just please, no one tell her that Walmart is online.

***UPDATE*** Mom posted this comment on her own Facebook profile (leaving me to hunt it down):

“Julie that photo was taken in 1965 not 1959. My goodness don’t age me like that.”

While the Internet is abuzz with white papers, points-of-views, tips and tricks for marketing to mommy blogs, you’ll be hard pressed to find the same on daddy blogs. My rigorous sleuthing (OK, I searched Google…) reveals there are at least twice as many mommy blogs as daddy blogs:
• Google search results for term “Mommy Blogs:” 41.8M
• Google search results for “Daddy Blogs:” 19.7M

I confess that I have zero first-hand knowledge of what it’s like to be a father. And, in the interest of full disclosure, I also have zero first-hand knowledge of what it’s like to be a mother. So, I queried my network that includes hundreds of dads to get their thoughts on why there are so few daddy blogs. It should be noted that for every one response I received from an actual “daddy,” I received two comments about daddy blogs from a “mommy.”

Stereotypes of dad as the breadwinner and mom as the homemaker/caregiver aside, I learned a few things about my father-friends. For dads, personal time does not equal parenting time. Whereas moms—not all, but many—tend to blend their personal and parenting lives so that the two can hardly be distinguished, dads compartmentalize their lives. Here’s what one father-friend said, “If I have free time at work to check on stuff that is of personal interest to me, I’m on CBS.Sportsline, ESPN.com or CNN.com.”

And, dads are, after all, men, which means most suffer from a heavy case of ego-mania. Dads don’t want outside advice on how to raise kids – they can figure it out themselves. Consider what this father told me: “It’s a male thing. We can figure out the solution on our own when it comes to parenting or fatherhood. Building a deck? We’ll ask our Home Depot guy 200 questions…”

Finally, more than a few dads told me if they needed advice on raising their kids, they would ask their own father—not surprising since studies, including one I co-authored for Hill & Knowlton entitled “The Future of Commerce” reveal that offline word-of-mouth still trumps online word-of-mouth as an influencer to behavior.

No surprise that online attitudes mirror offline attitudes. And, consider this, the reason Mommy blogs outnumber Daddy blogs 2-to-1 is likely engrained in our DNA. Take this blog post from Associated Content citing research proving that women are, quite simply put, better communicators than men:*

“The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine takes a fresh spin on a familiar topic: that women are better communicators than men and more specifically, the brain circuitry and hormones that make women so much more attuned — and some would say beholden to — the emotions of others are very real.”

There is no shortage of academic and scientific research that further validates this, and similar, points – just Google it.

In the meantime, here are some of the top Daddy blogs recommended by my network:
• www.AllProDad.com – “Advice. Events. Family”
• www.Blurbomat.com – I’m having issue understanding why a friend recommended this as a favorite Daddy Blog since you’ll be hard-pressed finding many posts about child-rearing and the blog itself describes itself as follows: “blurbomat is a personal site dealing with photography, geek rants and politically progressive topics. blurbomat is not for children.” I’m told this is the blog of the hubby to founder of the top-ranked mommy blog Dooce.com. Blurbomat.com has a Technorati Authority of 44 and Rank of 75,995. Dooce.com has a Technorati Authority of Authority: 2,036 and rank of 41. Not that its a competition or anything.
• www.DadLabs.com – “Taking Back Paternity”
• www.DigitalDads.com – “Advice. For Dads. By Dads.” <>
• www.NealPollack.com – “AlternaDad” <>

More than a few dads did respond saying their favorite “Daddy Blog” was www.ESPN.com, www.SI.com and www.PokerStars.net. I have to give them credit, because I know many mothers who claim www.Bloomingdales.com as their favorite “Mommy Blog.”

What are your favorite Daddy and/or Mommy Blog? Leave me a comment or send me an email – I’d love to check them out!

*This is also the accepted explanation for why there are more women than men in the public relations and communications industries.

A recent report from Nucleus Research and reported on by BusinessWeek found that the average company allowing access to Facebook loses 1.5% of total employee productivity across the organization. I’m fortunate to work in a profession that pretty much mandates I am active in social media for a magnitude of reasons, one of which is the profession’s move to “PR 2.0.” But more than that, I find that sites like Facebook and Twitter actually increase my professional productivity. I can ask my network of friends their insights, thoughts and recommendations on any number of topics related to PR, marketing, technology and more. And since my friends are highly diverse across geographies, genders, income levels, and interests, I get pretty diverse feedback that gets me out of my box. I can see what networking events are bubbling to the top among the industry’s who’s who – saving precious time that can be wasted by attending events that can be a let-down. I can easily identify mutual connections to would-be business associates and ask for introductions. And, these sites allow me to forge deeper connections with the clients, media and colleagues I work (and social network) with.

You can find me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/juliemathis and on Twitter at /juliemathis.

• wonder when companies will start appointing Chief Twitter Officers. Chief Tweet. #
• Twitter encouraging panic…Swine flu creates controversy on Twitter - CNN.com “http://bit.ly/SwvQD” http://bit.ly/SwvQD #
• @rbusbee in presidio thinking about your bacon cake. #
• @robpegoraro u should host tutorials on facebook privacy settings! maybe u can tell me how to restrict my mom from commenting on everything! #
• First known legal case originating in a virtual world was over a bed designed for rolls in the virtual hay: http://bit.ly/DYEy3 #
• @missro i missed it… where’s the new gig? #
• @queenofspain the marshmallows are the best part! #

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• #coachella whooo hooo day three!!! #
• Traffic back to LA from #coachella about 5 miles/hr on I-10 #
• Finally!!!! Coaverage at #coachella on the third night… #
• And on the third night, god said, let there be internet at #coachella so we could tweet the fest!!! #
• @nte #coachella misses you young noah!!!!! #
• #coachella misses you young @nte #
• @LATimes we had a pro football team?? #
• @latimesnystrom love it when big media companies DM me. LA Times, you’re cool. #
• @yourstuffstores thanks for twitting this! in reply to yourstuffstores #
• @dennysgrandslam dude, where were the grand slams at #coachella? i would pay good money to eat a grand slam while jamming to MIA in reply to dennysgrandslam #
• At Bay Area Council Outlook Conference-best panelist yet is Michael Covarrubias, Chair and CEO of TMG. #
• “Success is out, 20/20 hindsight is in” Gary Rogers, Chair of Levis at Bay Area Council Conference #
• Buildings in Silicon Valley are only two stories high and surrounded by fields of green grass so when you jump you only break an ankle-saffo #
• Where is the hydrogen highway?? #
• Why is there no hashtag for the Bay Area Council Conference?! #
• Waiting for hill and knowlton’s kevin elliott to interview #betterplace shai agassi at bay area council conference #
• @bpcommunity awesome intro by kevin elliott for shai at bay area council #
• Convenience+affordability+better than what we have today=@bpcommunity goal at bay area council con #
• Batteries are the new crude oil says shai @bpcommunity #
• “The biggness of this idea is not lost on anyone” -kevin elliott of HandK re: @bpcommunity during shai interview at bay area con #
• @jkretch How about a PR brand & social media partner? And, we’ll raise @160over90 ’s ping pong game with a killer game of foosball #
• #followfriday @rbusbee @ryanpeal two of the best spinners i know! #

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• can someone invite me to One Kings Lane? #
• is it odd that i want @ricksanchezcnn to win? #
• @jasoncalacanis Susan Boyle was the topic of ever discussion last night!!! #
• @cnnbrk count me in for follower 947,116! #
• @acoolong hey amanda! are you goint to the Girls in Tech ad:tech party Tuesday? #
• I just love this! worth sending around again. http://tinyurl.com/cr935m
  \ #
• OK, my mom seriously just called me on my mobile in the middle of the work day to talk about Susan Boyle? Really?! #
• will be fulfilling request to twiter coachella. do we have hashtag for it? #
• ok, it’s #coachella #
• who’s #coachella is staying at Grand Hyatt?? #
• #caochella via twitterberry baby! #
• @stephaniesays all my devices are charged and packed too! #coachella #
• Shout out to dad, who will be on npr all things considered today talking about anti-terror techniques for fighting pirates. #
• Now off to #coachella !!!! #
• Big guy spilling over into my seat on air ride to #coachella #
• Motoring in mini cooper to #coachella with pit stop at in n out!!! #
• Cabana 15 at oasis adult pool relaxing before #coachella #
• Friend’s hotel room at nice resort got robbed of everything last night while he was at #coachella. Lock up friends! #

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In H&K’s SF office, we spend a fair amount of time pontificating about what the future of commerce—specifically e-commerce—may look like.  Around the water cooler, we can be overheard opining on what eBay and Amazon.com may look like a year or two from now.  We scrutinize the impact of things like Facebook Marketplace entering the field.  We contemplate how mobile commerce will change the landscape.  More than one heated conversation has been had about the differences between male and female shoppers.  But, as a very frequent online shopper, I can personally attest to the key learnings that today’s sites provide.

First of all, I love secret shopping sites.  Gilt.com.  Rue-la-la.  Love them!  You must be invited to shop at these sites.  And, once behind the password-protected screen, you are treated to private sales featuring some of the world’s top designers like Marc Jacobs, Theory, Ali Ro, Gryson, and Chloe.  Items, usually from the past season, are severely discounted.  This site is not for the masses.  Each item is stocked in painfully limited supply—I suspect just a literal handful of items exist in each size, which means you must make decisions quickly if you expect to “win” your item.  What in the real-world would be considered a clearance sale becomes a “special sale event” that lasts only a few short 24-48 hours.  All of this—from the private access to the ticking clock counting down to end the sale—triggers the shopping endorphins more successfully than any ordinary “75%-off, Everything Must Go” sale.  Now, I understand this marketing strategy won’t work for every e-tailing brand, but for the right brands, it can be a perfect spin.  In my opinion, this marketing strategy is a form of social commerce—sometimes I log on just to see what sold out.  “Really,” I say to myself, “THAT sold out?!” 

But there’s more we can learn from these sites.  In fact, just this week, my WW Tech Practice Director, zoomed by my desk and commented on all the shoes on the screen.  “These are not just shoes, Josh,” I barked, “these are Christian Louboutins and they are 50-60% off.”  I do my best PR in a good pair of shoes, so I logged on and started shopping!  Only a few problems.  Gilt.com didn’t anticipate the demand the red-soled shoes would generate.  Shoppers set their alarm clocks to log on promptly at 9 am PT (all Gilt.com sales have this starting time and end Midnight ET).  Shoppers tried in vain to toss shoes into their virtual carts.  Everything was sold out within mere minutes, if not seconds.  But, worst of all, the site crashed.  Gilt.com’s servers couldn’t process the traffic and usual notices like “Sold Out” labels didn’t work—these labels are critical because it’s how we know to move on.  The last thing you want to do is piss off a lady trying to get a pair of discounted designer kitten pumps.  Check out the user comments posted on Gilt.com’s blog promoting the sale—here are some of the best: 

Oh my gosh, I cannot freaking order these! This website isn’t working!!!

I was logged on CL sale at exactly 12:00 EST & was unable to purchase 1 pair of CL shoes! I tried for my daughter (her sizes) and for me (my sizes) and got nowhere! By the time the page loaded with my choice it said it was in someone else’s bag although how they got through faster than I did is something worth thinking about. Does your staff have 1st dibs? How else can you explain NO purchases left?

ditto to laurie22…coming to this sale was worthless..I should just go to the major department store and pay full price for them…at least I will get a pair of shoes instead of people hogging them in their shopping carts…

i logged on at 11:30 am and at 12pm was ready to go and was unable to purchase 1 pair .. i tried my sisters sizes, moms, mine and got nowhere, i refreshed over 100 times … it was so slow and added me to the waitlist for every pair of shoes… i dont understand how i couldnt get one pair…very very upsetting …. does everyone have access at the same time or is it open to empoyees first?

So, in a transparent attempt to make my shoe-shopping look like work, I wanted to share with marketers a few key learnings from the Big Shoe Sale Flop of 2009.  (1) If you’re going to promote the heck out of a e-sale on Louboutins, upgrade your server capacity.  (2) If you screw up, do what Gilt.com did.  They posted an apology on their homepage (I can’t find it now—it must’ve been removed in favor of the current sale promotion that took its spot).  They were sincere.  They admitted they didn’t expect such an overwhelming response.  They told us what specifically went wrong.  They said this stumble was not what they expect of themselves and not the experience they want their community to endure.  I also give them bonus points for not overtly moderating the comments on their blog from all the disappointed shoppers—after all, we need a place to vent. 

Finally, if you would like to check out Gilt.com, email me and I’ll invite you.  And, I’m not just offering that because I’ll get a $25 account credit when you make your first purchase (note: that key learning No. 3).

Happy (discounted) shopping. 

• is it just me or is logging in to twitter slightly painful? why, or why, can’t twitter remember me? #
• was that an earthquake in SF? my first in this city! #
• @symantecnews LOVED the 60 Minutes segment! #
• Just added myself to the http://wefollow.com twitter directory under: #socialmedia #publicrelations #tech #
• oh, how I hate IM spam!!! #
• @ryanpeal April fool’s day should be a national holiday. #
• am totally outsourcing my twitter updates to twitter boy! http://iamtwitterboy.com/ #
• just googled “Girls in Tech” and saw the ads that got served up. NO, google, I am not looking for a sexy lady for a one night stand! Geeze! #
• @jspepper so can you tell me the .01% that you thought were brilliant? #
• @cdlbc well, what was the conficker big april fool’s attack? i haven’t heard anything! #
• @adrianf @nte OMG… how awesome would that be?? Conficker v. Jimmy Choo… i think the Choos would win! #
• @nte @marianmerritt @cdlbc @sondrasondra @adrianf Wait! AND come to SF and visit me! I have TWO blogs!!! My mom subscribes to both! #
• @jspepper Not impressed. #
• @dangerroom love w/ur blog. trying to track down article from Wired print about terrorism & Facebook fr last yr. Can you help? DM me. thx. #
• @qhardy wow, way to take a load off #
• @dangerroom THANK YOU!!! #
• gilt.com is having a Christian Louboutin sale next Wed. Want an invite to Gilt.com? DM me with ur email! #
• help! can anybody tell me why i’m only getting audio and no video on my quicktime on mac??? #
• @cdlbc no, apparently it’s pretty common. series of software, converters, yuck! heading to Mac class today to get me some genius! #
• i heart macs!!! i think… if i could just find out where my files go after i open them, i will love it more #

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